the clump would be the most 'economical' to the old lacemakers as it would be
a fast way to use up the remaining thread on the bobbins.
Lorri Ferguson
From: owner-l...@arachne.com on behalf of
hottl...@neo.rr.com
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2019 9:39 AM
To:
Got it! Just seems like some waste would have been involved by having what
would amount to "raw ends", start & finish. From an economic standpoint,
preventing any waste of completed lace would have been desirable, hence my
question. The start of my sample didn't look tidy & if I was the
I’m also thinking about how lace was traded - lacemakers were paid by the
length they made, and they didn’t make 50 yards of it in one long length the
way machines do. It was cut off when the tally-man came, so all lace would be
in fairly short pieces - of varying lengths. Looking at the
From the Downton Lace that I have done, and patterns that I have seen, all
the lace is lengths, not motifs. I've just checked the book I have by
Shelly Canning of Downton Lace from Salisbury Cathedral, there are no
corners either.
So you don't need to have pairs hung on one by one. When I
We tend to start patterns one at a time, winding bobbins particularly for that
pattern, and when we've done whatever length we want to work, be it for a
sample or for a particular project (which may or not hide the ends in seams) we
finish it off neatly and secure all ends with knots or
